A 2018 Pew Research Center report raises several questions about the 2016 election: Why did 28% of Hispanic voters vote for the man who promised to build a wall along our nation’s southern border? Why did almost 40% of women voters vote for a man who boasted he could molest a woman and get away with it, thereby exempting themselves from helping elect the first woman president? Why did some 57% of white voters from mainline churches (denominations usually associated with liberal social policies) vote for Trump? At the same time, why did the majority of white Roman Catholics voters vote for Trump? (Indeed, why did 20% of voters who self-identify as atheist or agnostic vote for the Republican?) And, finally, why did about 77% of evangelical voters support a man so flawed morally? Even though 16% American evangelicals voted for Clinton, millions of others sat out the election, not voting at all. I find each of these questions interesting, but clearly the evangelical vote has generated the greatest ire. I’m not a sociologist or statistician but I listen to people. Here’s are two of the three reasons I think evangelicals voted for Trump. (In case you’re wondering 71% of Jews voted for Clinton, fewer than voted for Gore, Kerry, and Obama in 2008.)
Why did evangelicals vote for Donald Trump?
Frustration. A few months before the 2016 election, my friend Brian posted a sentiment I’m sure resonated with lots of voters: “Two-hundred million people in this country and these are the two they come up with!” Certainly fair-minded voters on the left can understand why some might have hesitated to vote for a woman who (along with her husband) seems no less committed to making money than Trump; hesitated to vote for a woman who has such obvious disdain for ordinary people, like wives who bake cookies or owners of small businesses who wonder if those businesses will fail if they are asked to help pay for one more government program; hesitated to vote for a woman who deflected scrutiny by simply saying, “I do not recall,” knowing they wouldn’t be allowed to use the same tactic should their financial dealings or failure to follow protocol be under investigation. Lest you think I’ve been unfair to Clinton, remember progressive journalist Van Jones acknowledges both Trump and Clinton were flawed candidates. He wrote, “You put Hillary Clinton up against Donald Trump, I’m scared by the choice no matter what you do.”
I’ve no doubt Jones, a former member of President Obama’s administration, faithfully voted for Clinton, but he seems to have wished the party he ardently supports had offered a different choice. Voters like Franklin Graham may have enthusiastically voted for Trump, later joining the evangelist’s son in claiming God put Trump in office. But other evangelical voters, as Christianity Today’s Mark Galli suggests, “held their noses” as they voted for Trump.
Fear. Donald Trump appealed to our worst instincts.
In fairness, both Republicans and Democrats have used fear; indeed, perhaps all political parties have included fear and panic in their arsenals. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson’s opponents hinted the Deist would confiscate the nation’s Bibles if he was elected. (He was elected and attended church services often while in office.) A friend who was teaching sixth grade in an Alabama public school in 1968 recalled how his black students told him they were afraid Nixon would “put poison in our food.”
But few have been as skilled as Trump in using fear. Molly Ball, in an Atlantic article appearing two months before the election, wrote, “Trump is a master of fear, invoking it in concrete and abstract ways, summoning and validating it. More than most politicians, he grasps and channels the fear coursing through the electorate. And if Trump still stands a chance to win in November, fear could be the key.” (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ archive/2016/09/donald-trump-and-the-politics-of-fear/498116/)
While I’m not ready to join those saying, “Let’s just open the borders; we have room for everyone,” I do not believe the majority of those circumventing the immigration rules were criminals before they crossed the border; they are simply looking for better lives. Yet Trump cast the majority of those coming from Mexico as being drug-addicts or “rapists;” adding, only as an afterthought, that there might be “some . . . good people” amongst those slipping illegally into the country. No wonder we hear of Latino workers being confronted by non-Latinos demanding to see their “papers.” Anyone who sounds even a little like Ricardo Montalban is to be watched very carefully (if he’s not an out-and-out thief, he might be a conman trying to sell you a trip to an island where your fantasies come true).
Those you fear are unlikely to become those you love. Any politician who depends on fear is not creating community or attempting to make America great again. Still, when you're afraid, your reason may flee and you may make bad choices. (More to come)
